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MRS BUTTERFINGERS

Long ago and far away, in a time when you dialed your phone using only four digits. When the Green Hornet was a radio program heard Thursday nights. When fast food outlets did not exist, a girl dreamed of following in her Father’s footsteps and becoming a chef. A chef in her own restaurant. To her great joy she met a man who shared the same dream. Together they cooked from the heart, and created food that nourished the soul.

Where To Eat In Canada listed ROXY’S BISTRO in their One Hundred Best Restaurants in Canada. The Globe and Mail said “Roxy’s cuisine is cutting edge”. Western Living and En Route magazines wrote about the ROXY experience. Gourmet magazine requested our recipes.

We opened PASSIONATE PIZZA in Vancouver. In the very first year it was voted BEST PIZZA IN VANCOUVER by Vancouver magazine, and by the U.S. publication Best Restaurants in the Pacific North West.

BEL’OCCHIO COOKS allowed us to share our love of cooking with cooking classes in our country home. Now MRS. BUTTERFINGERS, our food blog, is accomplishing the same endeavor.

The restaurants are now happy memories, the dream of cooking to be shared with all who enter her world. MRS. BUTTERFINGERS is about cooking, not to impress, but to nurture and comfort your family and friends. Recipes to share with all who wish to create food with heart and soul.

When I share recipes with you I share the thoughts and experience of someone who has cooked for more than fifty years, thirty of those years in the professional kitchen. The most important rule about cooking is to enjoy it. Recipes are guidelines. Be flexible. Use the very best ingredients possible. Put on some great music, make yourself a cup of tea, and your food will be wonderful. The kitchen is truly the heart of the home.

Standing in the kitchen cooking won’t make you a “chef”, just as standing in the garage doesn’t make you a car. Amateur chefs do not exist. It’s an oxymoron. Your earn your title of Chef cooking at a ten burner stove, ordering supplies, planning and costing menus, and finally training staff to your exacting standards.

But you can become a really, really good cook. In a perfect world you would cook beside me in my kitchen. As the shadows lengthen and the evening draws in we would savor wonderful cooking smells, and enjoy a glass of wine. For recipes, cooking tips, thoughts on food and kitchen wisdom join me on my blog Mrs. Butterfingers.

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11 thoughts on “MRS BUTTERFINGERS”

I am certain you already are. The single best advice I can give anyone who wants to put wonderful food on the table for their family and friends – is keep it simple. Learn to roast the perfect chicken, with the best gravy. Find your cookie groove, or bake and bake rich chocolate brownies. How about deviled eggs you can’t stop eating Start with the freshest and best ingredients and you will be a successful cook.

We are inundated daily with recipes on television, in magazines and of course food blogs. They’re dangerous, because you are strongly influenced by all these choices. They put unreasonable pressure on the cook in the kitchen. Your guests and family feel that stress. Not good.

Give yourself a repertoire of about a dozen main courses and cook them over and over again. Practice really does make perfect. Be known for your beef stew, or chicken soup, or Caesar salad.

The other secret. Learn to season. If you feel your dish is lacking something, it is probably salt. Don’t use idonized salt. Pick up a box of Kosher salt and keep it in a dish by the stove. Concerning the bad rep salt gets. Avoid any kind of processed food like the plague. You have no control of the salt content, and you will find the sodium content of processed foods incredibly high.

It sounds like I am harkening back to the good old days – and I am.
Bon Appetit Virginia

Virginia, What a fabulous life you are living! I’m so impressed with your accomplishments and find your recipes incredibly appealing. James and I are gathering the ingredients for your Vegetarian Eggplant Sweet Potato Pizza and hope to fix it this weekend. Thanks for the great inspiration! All the best, Terri

I must warn you Terry. This pizza is addictive. Two days after we make it, I’m seriously thinking.. must have eggplant sweet potato pizza. Then I slap myself around a little and convince myself to wait until pizza Friday